0.12.0

Released 2026-10-22. GitHub release | Downloads

Added

• HTML Encoding: Added encodeForHTML() and its htmlEditFormat() alias, matching BoxLang JVM output.
• SQLite Datasources: Register SQLite databases programmatically or through minimal matchbox.toml datasource configuration.
• Inline CLI Execution: Execute source with --eval or -e, including prelude functions and source-located diagnostics.

Changed

• dateFormat, timeFormat and dateTimeFormat now mirror BoxLang's DateTimeFormat BIF: masks are Java DateTimeFormatter patterns (case sensitive, mm is minutes, MM is month, invalid letters and repeat counts raise Java's errors), with Java's default masks, named masks (short, medium, long, full, iso, iso8601, odbc, javascript, epoch, epochms), timezone and locale arguments and English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Japanese and Chinese locale text. Locales without bundled data fall back to en_US; named regions other than UTC/GMT use MatchBox's fixed-offset zone table (no tz database).
• createDateTime and createDate accept every argument as optional, like BoxLang (createDateTime( 2024, 3, 5, 14, 7, 9 ) works, no arguments returns now).

Fixed

• WASM time traps: The VM scheduler and getTickCount() now use web_time clocks; synchronous scheduler waits poll instead of calling unsupported std::thread::sleep in WASM builds.
• <bx:switch> evaluates its expression, runs only the matching <bx:case> (no fall-through, value with delimiters matches any listed item) and <bx:defaultcase> only when nothing matches; text after the switch is kept (#93).
• super.method( args ) works in class methods: it calls the parent class implementation with this bound to the current instance, across any depth of inheritance and inside closures. Named arguments are not supported with super.
• new Child() calls init() inherited from a parent class when Child defines none (the compiler only looked at the class itself).
• --target wasi works again: the WASI runner stub lost its embed region in an earlier refactor, so packaging always failed with "WASI stub is missing the BOXLANG_EMBED sentinel". --target wasm produced an invalid module (a custom section written without its header) that no runtime could load; it is now the same as --target wasi. The docs said --target wasm was browser oriented; use --target js for the browser.
• Native Fusion reads native/Cargo.toml: its [dependencies] are added to the generated build (relative path dependencies are resolved against native/), as the Native Fusion guide already described. Redeclaring a crate the build provides (matchbox_vm, postcard, bincode, anyhow) is an error.
• Java interop (bif-jni): methods and constructors are chosen by their parameter types, not just argument count (sb.append( 2 ), String.valueOf( 5 )), static methods work on createObject( "java", ... ) references (Math.max( 1, 2 ), Integer.parseInt( "42" )), and Java exceptions report their class and message.
• for ( row in query ) iterates the rows of a query (it failed with "Iteration only supported for arrays and structs"). A BIF that is compiled out now says which build feature provides it, and the QoQ error names the qoq feature.
• Member functions that map to existing BIFs now resolve: struct keyArray, keyList, valueArray, filter, map, reduce, some, every, none, delete, insert, update, clear, copy, sort, findValue, hash; string listToArray, listPrepend, listInsertAt, listSetAt, listReduce, jsonDeserialize, toBase64, toBinary, yesNoFormat and other list/string members; array join, findNoCase, isDefined; number max, min, formatBaseN; date hash; future isDone.
• Script lock name="x" timeout=n { ... } blocks parse and run their body (a lock never contends in the single-threaded VM). Script thread { ... } now parses and reports "The thread component is not supported yet in MatchBox" instead of a struct-literal parse error.
• Labeled loops: outer: for ( ... ) with continue outer / break outer (also while and do) now work like BoxLang. Labels were parsed and silently ignored, so continue outer only continued the inner loop.
• The mod operator (7 mod 3) and unary not (not x) now parse, like BoxLang. mod stays usable as an identifier.
• private class methods are enforced: calling one from outside the class (or an unrelated class) throws, while calls from the class, its subclasses and its closures keep working.
• Class properties generate getX()/setX() by default (accessors=false opts out), generated setters return the instance so calls chain, and obj.name / obj.name = v use the accessors when there is no such field, as in BoxLang.
• <bx:include template="..."> includes the named template instead of an empty path (#93).
• class extends=Base implements=Speaker (and extends:Base) accept an unquoted class name like BoxLang; only the quoted form parsed before.
• Script-level variables is now the same store as bare variables (variables.k = 1; k and j = 2; variables.j work), and CLI scripts and class methods have a request scope.
• CLI argument handling now follows BoxLang's BoxRunner and CLIGetArgs: options only count before the script file, everything after it goes to the script (matchbox app.bxs -v runs the script with -v), -h/--help/-v/--version are global only as the sole argument, unknown options fall through like BoxLang, and cliGetArgs() parses --opt=value, --!opt/--no-opt, -o=value, -abc and quoted values exactly like BoxLang (a value is never taken from the next token) and keeps the first script argument. Breaking: put MatchBox options before the file (matchbox --target esp32 --chip esp32s3 --flash app.bxs); the documentation is updated, and the old -- separator is no longer special. Adds BoxLang's runtime flags: --bx-debug, --bx-code <code>, --bx-printAST (file, --bx-code or stdin) are implemented, --bx-config/--bx-home are accepted (never reach the script) with a warning that MatchBox ignores them, --bx-transpile is rejected clearly; and the server.cli scope (args, parsed, executionPath, command) with server.boxlang.cliMode.
• <bx:loop> works: from/to/step/index counting loops, array, list, collection and condition loops no longer run forever or print null (#93).
• Security: ESP32 firmware no longer ships default Wi-Fi credentials. Without MATCHBOX_ESP32_WIFI_SSID / MATCHBOX_ESP32_WIFI_PASSWORD at build time Wi-Fi stays off and the boot log says so (the credentials that were in the source should be considered public).
• Destructuring rest elements ([ a, ...rest ] = arr, { a, ...others } = struct) are now assigned instead of silently dropped.
• arraySlice now follows BoxLang: start defaults to 1, length is a count (0 or omitted means to the end, negative trims from the end) and a negative start counts from the end.
• Calling a function without a required argument now throws Required argument [a] is missing for function [f] (type Application) like BoxLang, instead of silently passing null.
• Tree-shaking no longer drops prelude functions that are only reached through member calls ([3,1,2].sort(), .first(), .reverse(), .sum(), ... failed with "BIF arraysort not found" outside --no-shaking).
• Removed prelude copies of abs, min, max, arrayIsEmpty, arrayPrepend, arrayContains and arrayContainsNoCase that shadowed the native BIFs depending on tree-shaking; arrayPrepend now returns the array and arrayContains is case-sensitive for arrays and case-aware for sets.
• Closures at script level can now see the for ( n in ... ) loop variable (and index) instead of failing with "Variable 'n' not found"; assignments to the loop variable in the body are shared with closures.
• future.get() inside a native callback (map, filter, ...) no longer hangs: the nested callback now lets other fibers run while it waits.
• Array members map, each, filter, reduce, some, every and none no longer use the Set helpers: map kept only unique results, and callbacks now receive (value, index, array) ((accumulator, value, index, array) for reduce) like BoxLang.
• variables.n++ / ++variables.n inside classes and scripts no longer fail with "Fused increment only supported on structs and instances", and prefix ++/-- now accept member targets such as ++s.n.
• new C() now evaluates to the instance when init() returns nothing or null, and to the returned value otherwise, matching BoxLang.
• Tree-shaking no longer drops prelude functions that are only reached through member calls ([3,1,2].sort(), .first(), .reverse(), .sum(), ... failed with "BIF arraysort not found" outside --no-shaking).
• Removed prelude copies of abs, min, max, arrayIsEmpty, arrayPrepend, arrayContains and arrayContainsNoCase that shadowed the native BIFs depending on tree-shaking; arrayPrepend now returns the array and arrayContains is case-sensitive for arrays and case-aware for sets.
• Corrected the native fusion documentation example that used the nonexistent BxValue::new_string; strings are returned with BxValue::new_ptr( vm.string_new( text ) ).

Documentation

• Documented which BIF groups exist in WASM builds: hash() needs the bif-crypto feature, http() is not usable in the browser.